Tot School: Transportation and More Spring Fun

We had such a fun week learning about different types of transportation. Our Spring Break over Easter week was good, but we are all happy to be back into our normal routine. He are some of the books we enjoyed looking at this week.
TRANSPORTATION
We had a lot of fun using our toy trucks and cars to make tire tracks on Tt. This truck was the coolest because it left a really fun tread mark.
Having a ball!
The finished product. You can't really see it, but somewhere underneath all of those transportation stickers there is a Tt. lol Asa loves stickers and will diligently peel and stick until all of them are gone. The bottom is a picture with some cool tire treads in it.
Asa worked on some pre-writing skills this week. These cute printables are from here. I must say that his skills are pretty rough. :)
Doing his very best.
This would be one crazy plane ride! :)
We also did some counting cards from the same pack. He did excellent. He only needed my help a couple times and that is because he was moving his finger faster than he was counting.
Working the clothespins and the card at the same time. This can be a difficult thing for toddlers to coordinate. He wasn't even able to do it a month ago.
Using train gel clings from Target to decorate the window. Always a favorite in this house.
This is Asa's very first color by number.
He did a good job following the directions and finding the numbers. He was so proud of his work he even wrote his name.
My mom bought these cute transportation valentine's on clearance. I laminated them and gave them to Annabelle and Asa to play memory with.
I love when they play games together! This is a game with rules and taking turns and they were able to play without any refereeing on my part. That makes me one happy momma.
SPRING/RANDOM
Working on the sound matching eggs.
He found a match!
I finally got around to putting out the Easter sun catchers. Unfortunately I did it during nap time and Annabelle got to three of them before he woke up. I made sure she saved one for him.
His little duck.
Sorting cupcake picks.
Working on counting crosses. More description on this and the cupcake picks can be found here.
Annabelle wanted to take a picture of us....and he thought this was just hilarious.
SWEET SILAS
Silas is really, truly, finally blossoming into a little, independent, sweet man. I'm finding that he is coming to me less and less to for entertainment and learning to do things on his own or with his siblings. This makes me very happy and sad at the same time (he's growing up!). I am glad that he is learning to be content. A content baby makes for a happy house.

He loves letters and puzzles. He worked for a really long time on this toy. Over his head, yes, but it combined two of his favorite things.
He is wanting to do everything his brother and sister are doing. He has a 'if you can do it so can I' attitude. Full of spunk this one. Dot painting his Tt. I gave him a blank sheet of paper at first and he insisted (yelled no at me and said T) that he be given a paper with the letter Tt on it. Silly boy.
Painting with cars on the letter Tt.
He was done as soon as he got his hand messy. A little abnormal for him.
Apparently he would much rather help me clean the cars and play in the water than paint.
Another one of his favorite activities. That is a full basket of crayons. lol
He also decorated the window with some gel clings. He played with these the rest of the evening.
That's all for this week. Hope you all had a good one too. Happy blogging.
jess_hak

Head on over to 1+1+1=1 to see other cuties in action.

Week in Review: Transportation & More Spring Fun

Another week and we're pushing forward! We had a good time learning about different modes of transportation the week. I think that we had a pretty good time. We had a nice break over the week before Easter, but it was nice for everyone to get back into a routine.
TRANSPORTATION WORK
I got these little wooden puzzles from Target. Annabelle was watching me while I was setting this up....
She wanted to play with them so much that she didn't even bother to move them from the chair they were photographed on.
We worked on a few things from the Transportation Preschool Pack. We worked on the directions left and right. She does very well with knowing what way is what for the most part.

This cute graph is from the 2 Teaching Mommies unit. It was a fun way to figure out what goes together. We also used the cards to play a what doesn't belong type of game. I would lay out 4 of the cards and one of them didn't fit into the group.
Our letter for this week was Tt. Tt is for transportation, trains, trucks, tires etc. Annabelle had a good time making tire marks with cars and trucks dipped in paint.
....so much fun. :)
The finished letter Tt for our alphabet wall.
Decorating the window with some transportation gel clings we got at Target. This is always a favorite activity for the kids.
Working on a color by number from the first preschool pack mentioned above. She isn't too thrilled with these, but it really helps her practice following directions. It also makes he focus and pay attention so that she doesn't color a number incorrectly (focusing and engaging her mind is something that is hard for her at the moment).
My mom found these cute transportation valentines on clearance at Meijer and I made a matching game for Annabelle and Asa to play.
It's so fun to see them cooperating and playing a game with rules and turn taking involved! They were able to do this with minimal interference from me.
MORE FUN WITH SPRING ACTIVITIES
We finally got around to painting the sun catchers from the Dollar Tree. Annabelle really wanted to do all four of them, but I made her save one for Asa.
The finished bunnies. I was surprised she used so much color! I really expected her to do them all one color: pink or purple (or pink and purple mixed together). lol
I finally purchased a home membership to Starfall.com Annabelle was having such a hard time recognizing numbers (and even counting) past 12. She would get so frustrated and just give up. It was so sad (and frustrating) to see her be so defeated. The Starfall membership has number games up to 20 and I knew with how much she loved their phonics that she would do well with these. Let me just say.....the best $35 I've spent in a LONG time. There is a vast improvement in just two days......
....and because of Starfall we can finally enjoy our bunny slap game! She has never smiled because of math before! lol What a wonderful triumph for her.
There is a sign of Spring in our house that I must admit we all dislike (some much more than others).....ANTS. They are all over our house! So gross. Annabelle decided on her own to write a little 'story' about ants in her journal that she carries around. It says, "Annabelle Hakala Lorraine scared of ants." (yes, I did help her spell everything but her first name). The picture is an ant. And the OBO above the ant says, "BOO!" So funny. She read it over and over and over again. At least she makes up for her dislike of numbers with her growing curiosity of reading.
That's it for this week. I'm really hoping that Spring shows up in MI sometime soon. I'm so ready for 65+ weather! Speaking of weather (how is that for a transition), we are doing two letters this week. Uu for Umbrella and Ww for weather. I have some fun things planned....that I need to start preparing. lol Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Go visit Homeschool Creations and see what other preschoolers are doing!

Tot School: Easter/Spring and the letter Ss

What a week! We were very light on schooling this week. Only squeezed 3 days of activities in, but we had fun. I'm directing the Easter play at church so it is consuming my thoughts and that probably has something to do with not getting more done. I have a feeling that this week is going to be the same way. I did not do the letter Ss justice by giving it such a short week and not doing many themed activities that I could've done, but the kids still learned the letter and the sound it makes (including Silas!). We also had a fun time with our Spring trays that I put together earlier in the week.

LETTER Ss
We concentrated on S is for sun. This first picture I just love because all three of my kids are working on three different things at the same time....peacefully! This is one of the things that I know is going to warm my heart over the years of homeschooling.
Asa is working on his Ss letter craft. He didn't finish it (I have no idea why) so I posted a picture of Annabelle with her finished art so you can see the end result.
The finished project. S is for sun and stars.
I printed these off from Sparklebox. We played a game with them. I laid out the set of lowercase letters. Asa would draw a sun from the uppercase letter pile, say the phonic sound, then find the match.
I love his expression here as he is looking for the match.
Spring activities/trays
If you want detailed information about these trays you can find them in my post here (also posted at the beginning of the blog). :)

Working on the sticker tray
This is the CVC egg tray. He did so well with these eggs. He loved this activity. This boy really wants to read! Here he is after putting the letters in the correct order (without my help!) and saying the sounds out loud and then 'saying it fast'.
We made collages using tissue paper and contact paper cut into cross shapes. I plan on making a pretty garland to hang in our window with these and the paper mache eggs that we made this week too. It will be a nice replacement for our shamrocks that I took down.....a couple days ago. lol
Finished....just pretty, and a great reminder of Christ's love for us.
Paper mache.....messiest craft I have ever done with the kids! Although it was enjoyed by all (except Silas....he sat this one out). I got this great idea from The Chocolate Muffin Tree. If you have never visited her blog you should when you get some time. Such creative, artistic ideas for little ones.
This picture does not do them justice. They are quite lovely. I can't wait to get them strung up with the crosses and hung in our window. It will be a great splash of color against the white snow (?!?!) that is falling from the sky right now.
Just a random little picture that I love from this week. He is working on some two part puzzles that we got from a friend. I told him to smile and this is what I get.....goofy boy. :)

SILAS
Silas actually let me take pictures of him this week! I didn't push my luck though and only took them for one of our tot school times. The camera is so distracting to him.

Spooning eggs. This was one of his favorites.
Putting cards into a shoebox that I cut a slit into. (Not Easter or spring, but one that he played with for quite some time this week).
He loved opening and closing all these eggs. There was something different in each one, and he loved finding out what it was.
Bunnies!!
Working really hard at putting the egg back together. Love the face. lol
You can't hear him, but he was saying, "S sssssss". The whole time he was dotting this picture. It was pretty cute.
He joined us in making tissue paper crosses. He likes this art project. He has a fascination with contact paper. lol

That was our week! Looking forward to using 2 Teaching Mommies resurrection egg lessons next week and talking to my kids about the love of Jesus and the joyful news of our salvation! Happy blogging.
jess_hak

I am linking this to 1+1+1=1. See what other fun tots are up to this week.